Today was another fantastic day on the bike. We got to ride the McKenzie River Trail. It’s a real gem, and in many people’s opinion, *the* gem in Oregon or maybe, anywhere.
I wouldn’t go quite that far, but it sure works itself well into a bikepacking loop. The lower half is lovely green circle riding — as smooth, wide and buff a trail as you can imagine. Just perfect by us. Probably the nicest change was the absolute lack of overgrowth, which is something we’ve been accustomed to on many trails as of late. Many, many people ride and hike this trail, so you know it’s going to be in good shape, cut out, etc.
We rolled a few easy miles from our (near) Belknap camp, then my nose detected the slighest hint of hot sulphur. There’s a spring somewhere! That’s not a subtlety I would have picked up on even a couple years ago.
Bigelow (or Deer) spring was our eighth and final hot spring on the grand tour. And, boy, it was a good one. It’s in a little grotto tucked in just besides the river, and we pretty much had it to ourselves. It was soooo relaxing, and we didn’t really want to leave.
But the trail called! That, and I happened to pick up the little piece of beta that the lodge at the end of the trail stops serving at 5pm. We had to be semi-kinda-not-really motivated.
I have only ridden McKenzie at the end of a bikepacking trip, and I did it out and back style, and unloaded. I knew that I loved it, and enjoyed the challenge, and walked minimally. But how would it go fully loaded? I’d been warned by multiple sources that it was gnarly and not worth doing in the ‘wrong’ direction, as we were going.
I forgot about all the lava rock leading up to the Blue Pool. It’s very chunky by Oregon standards…. but, we loved it. Eszter was killing the chunk, with big rallies and lots of impressive moves. Then we started running into a few larger group of mountain bikers. There was a post being shared around recently asking if riders had forgotten that uphill supposedly has the right of way. Many of these riders had forgotten that, and even though they couldn’t ride down through the rocks, they weren’t going let anyone even try to ride up them.
It was pretty comical, really. I thought surely some of them would respect the effort being put in by Ez to rally up the rocks with bikepacking gear, and at least make a minimal effort to get out of the way. But, instead they got back on when they saw her coming, and proceeded to skid and ride one-footed, out of control, nearly into her.
A minute later a guy stopped right in the middle of the trail and started cleaning off his sunglasses. I was riding, gave him plenty of warning with a friendly greeting, and watched dumbfounded as he stood there completely blocking the trail with nowhere for me to go, not even a lean in one direction.
I slowed to a near trackstand and actually asked, “ummm, can you please move out of the way?”
Good entertainment, really. And pretty standard for a popular shuttle ride.
Other funny comments included a dad saying to his kid, “See, it can be done!” After Ez rode through a section. “Alright, bikepacking, legit!” Other riders were super cool and a couple even recognized we were bikepacking, which is rare since we really don’t carry that much stuff.
The trail does get pretty hard near the big blue waterfalls. Luckily it’s one of the coolest places a trail exists, anywhere, and any nomial hike-a-bikes are quickly forgotten. You get to explore the bottom, middle and tops of the falls as you climb your way up. And you get to bask in the cool air of evaporative cooling. Hear the rush. Dazzle in the rainbows. Just magic.
Hot springs, huge falls, water so clear and so blue, electric green mosses, old growth forest, fun bikepack-tech trail, smooth rallying…. there is so much to like, and man, what a day.
We made the lodge with time to spare. And…… the resupply was looking really thin. Sandwiches to go! Our order thoroughly confused the waitress, and as we sat a little longer, we decided to ditch plans to keep moving and instead find a spot to camp on Clear Lake. There’s the lava side of the McKenzie, which features paved singletrack at times, so we could run around the lake. The bonus? Breakfast at the cafe, and a better shot at making the cookies and candy bar resupply run to the town of Sisters work. With any luck, we’ll bag two lookouts on the way.
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